


sharing half our genes, and nothing in between

by dizzyondreams



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, Fluff, M/M, Post-Movie(s), Trans Male Character, clothes sharing and spooning, letterman jackets and hermann's dark and completely unsurprising german mathlete past, this is a 2k word love story from me to hermann being a really big ass loser
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-11 20:31:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5640943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzyondreams/pseuds/dizzyondreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Christ, Hermann, is this a letterman jacket?” Newt cried, spinning and holding it up with a level of glee he hadn’t reached since he got that salivary gland from Mutavore. “How cliché can you get?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	sharing half our genes, and nothing in between

Post Operation Pitfall, post Newt’s third and fourth near death experiences, post drift, post Mako and Raleigh returning all photogenic and heroic, post Hermann kissing him under the influence of sheer giddy relief and half a bottle of _gin_ , of all things- 

They were tidying. Or rather, Hermann was tidying. Newt was watching him with the intense kind of stare that stopped him from making friends like, his entire life. His mouth tasted like gin, still, and his chin burned where Hermann, in a state of uncharacteristic semi-kemptness, had scraped him with his stubble.

“So, anyway,” Newt began, and Hermann, recognising the sweeping start of his uniquely _Geiszlerian_ sentences, paused in his task and gave him a long-suffering look. Newt wondered if Hermann knew he’d been shifting the same pile of files from one side of his desk to the other for the better part of ten minutes. “I am literally stewing in my own filth, and admittedly, though this is a state I often find myself in, and rock, by the way, I am literally crawling out of my skin and best case scenario would probably include this outfit I’m wearing being destroyed.” 

“Would you like a shower?” Hermann asked evenly, leaning heavily on his cane and coming to stand in front of Newt, who was mostly _sorta_ vertical and definitely not getting stuck in a loop of himself through Hermann’s memories. _Note to self_ , Newt spoke into his mental Dictaphone, _The Newt of Hermann’s memories is approximately ten percent more dishevelled than I actually am._ He paused. _Another note to self, I just realised that I’ve been referring to my own brain as a mental Dictaphone, which is actually not very apt at all considering my short term memory, so my bad._

“Yeah.” Newt said, verbally, wondering if his voice really sounded like it did through Hermann’s memories. He flicked his gaze up to meet Hermann’s. “Preferably one with a seat.”

“Of course.” Hermann sighed, and Newt grinned up at him with what he hoped was his most winning smile. Judging by Hermann’s expression, he’d overshot winning and landed solidly in manic. Oh well, he thought, standing, you win some you lose some.

\------------

His eye felt like a hot coal in his eye socket, and all Newt wanted right now was for him and his hematoma to curl up and sleep for a week. Instead, he dry swallowed a couple painkillers stolen from Hermann’s bathroom cabinet like a champ and stepped into the shower with a hiss as every scrape and cut on his body made itself known. 

Hermann was sitting at his desk when Newt emerged, towel clutched around his waist and glasses fogging up from the heat of the shower. The fade of the drift wasn’t so weak that Newt wasn’t aware of the little spark of want that went through Hermann at the sight of all his bare skin. He grinned to himself. 

“Oh, stop looking so smug.” Hermann muttered scathingly, and Newt’s grin turned into laughter as he crossed the room to take a seat on the bed. His eye throbbed warningly like, hey buddy, one wrong move and I’m out. Newt ignored it. 

“I don’t suppose you have some pj’s I could borrow?” Newt hedged, not wanting to return to his own room. 

“I should have known this was a ploy to get yourself into my bed.” Hermann sighed, then relented when Newt gave him his best ‘I may actually be dying and won’t know until I get an MRI tomorrow’ look. “Fine, yes, I do, but get them yourself.” He said, a little grouchy, mouth a tight line.

He melted when Newt crossed the room and took his face gently in his hands. His eye looked as bad as Newt’s felt, and it fluttered shut in relief when Newt brushed his thumbs over his temples, just skating the edges of his shorn hair.

“I’ll get you some painkillers.” Newt said a little awkwardly, not accustomed to being gentle. His heart swelled tight with affection when Hermann tipped his head into his hand and made a noise of assent. The lingering effects of their drift buzzed behind Newt’s eyes, but when he was close to Hermann like this it eased into a comforting background hum.

“Put some clothes on first.” Hermann mumbled, sitting back in the chair and away from Newt’s hands. The buzzing in Newt’s skull gradually reached its peak again as he tipped out two pills into Hermann’s hands with only minimal shaking, because Newt was just _crushing_ this day, so far. Shaking hands? No problem for an intellectual badass of Newt’s level.

It occurred to him that he was still only wearing one of Hermann’s towels, and that perhaps he should be a little self conscious of the general…softness of his person. But hey, Hermann got it, right? Late nights saving the world and eating microwave ramen plus the five years or so he spent smoking his way through his first couple PhDs meant he was no Raleigh Becket, but he still managed avoiding being eaten _twice_ , so that counted for something. Plus, Hermann had been inside his memories, and undoubtedly seen Newt during his awkward pre-transition years, so anything up from that was a stellar improvement.

“I’m willing to bet a lot of money that you have argyle pyjamas.” He commented, throwing open Hermann’s wardrobe and squinting inside. “Dude, do you seriously hang up your pjs?” Amongst the mass of monochrome and tragic patterns, there was an eye catching green sleeve. Newt tugged on it, at the same time Hermann made a noise through his nose that Newt immediately associated with Riemann zeroes, for some reason. He took a moment to re-orient himself as Newt, lover of everything Hermann looked down his nose at and moderately bored by everything Hermann loved.

“Newton, leave that in there.” Hermann said, and really, he should _definitely_ know by now that telling Newt not to do something was only going to make him do it harder. And possibly two or three times. Newt pulled it off the hanger and felt his mouth drop open when he saw what it was.

“Christ, Hermann, is this a letterman jacket?” He cried, spinning and holding it up with a level of glee he hadn’t reached since he got that salivary gland from Mutavore. “How cliché can you get?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” Hermann sniffed, looking a bit pink around the ears. 

“I mean, how 80’s romcom is that! And you _kept_ it, fuck. Did you date the captain of the football team and he gave you this to get in your pants or what.” He hugged it to his chest. “Fuck, one minute, I’m living vicariously through you for my lost high school years.”

“You’ve gotten the wrong end of the stick, Newton.” Hermann said coldly, and pointed to the front of the jacket. “Please use that supposedly giant brain of yours and _read_.”

Newt sat himself down on the bed and spread the jacket across his knees, grinning instantly as he saw the stitched ‘Werdenfels-Gymnasium Mathletes’. In the middle of the words was the curl of the golden ratio stitched in gold thread against the green, and he felt an odd wave of affection rise in him. “God, that’s fucking adorable, man.” He turned it over and almost choked. “Jesus, it even says Gottlieb on the back.” He glanced up at Hermann, who was rolling his eyes. “This is the jackpot.” He whispered reverently. “You carted this around the whole time?”

“It has sentimental value.” Hermann said stiffly.

“I still stand by my cliché statement.” Newt said, “You goddamn mathlete, fuck.” He laughed, wincing as his eye throbbed warningly again. “Of course you were.”

“If anyone’s a cliché here it’s you.” Hermann said. “And they asked me to join them, thank you very much.”

“How am I a cliché?” Newt protested, abruptly remembering his near nakedness as he slipped the jacket on. “By the way, close your eyes.”

“German _wunderkind_ with a bad attitude.” Hermann shut his eyes as Newt fished a pair of boxers out of Hermann’s drawers and pulled them on.

“Says Caul Gauss over here.” Newt shot back, finding a pair of socks (argyle) and pulling them on too. “What d’you think?” He held his arms out, striking a pose for Hermann, who opened his eyes gingerly.

“You certainly cut quite a figure in that.” Hermann said, barely suppressed laughter in his voice. Newt frowned and looked down at himself critically.

“It’s a little big.” He allowed, though that was perhaps an understatement. It came to the top of his thighs, and the sleeves hung down with a good five inches spare past his hands. 

“You’ll grow into it.” Hermann said dryly, rising from his chair to take a seat on the bed. Newt made a sound of outrage, rounding on him.

“I’m speechless!” He cried. “How dare you!”

“That’s a first.” Hermann muttered, propping his cane against the side table and avoiding Newt’s eye, a smile on his face.

“You _know_ cracks about my height are unforgivable.” Newt said, or maybe yelled, he couldn’t really tell. He pulled the jacket tight around him. It smelt like mothballs and cigarettes, and wondered if Hermann had worn it since he’d known him. It lacked his distinct scent of chalk and some old dude cologne, so Newt guessed not. “In my scientific opinion you should give me this now.”

“On what grounds?”

“Because you’re my boyfriend and that’s what boyfriends do.” Newt replied, taking a seat very gingerly next to Hermann as his possible subdural haemorrhage made itself known once again. “I think all this mathlete excitement is gonna give me a migraine any second now.”

“I’m surprised you haven’t given yourself a nosebleed yet.” Hermann said softly, running his hands through Newt’s still damp hair as he settled into Hermann’s side. One of the buttons of the jacket was digging into Newt’s stomach, and before he could get it Hermann reached down at straightened it out.

“Creepy.” Newt commented, that comfortable hum in his mind blurring out the pain.

“You’re not keeping the jacket, however.” Hermann said, and shook his head at Newt’s sound of betrayal. “You’ll get some manner of Kaiju _muck_ on it, and probably melt it, or spill some manner of horrible food on it and never wash it. There’s so many things that could go wrong with you, the chemicals you are somehow qualified to handle, and something of great sentimental value to me.”

“That’s great, Hermann,” Newt said honestly, trying to cover up how much he was sinking into the pillows and possibly unconsciousness. He was barely slurring at all. “That really is, but I’m gonna wear it because I like it and it smells like you, and no one’s even given me their letterman jacket before.”

“I’m not giving it to you.” Hermann said, exasperated. Newt slid a little lower into the bed. He was thinking about where he could get Otachi tattooed, whether he should call his dad before or after he knocked out for a few hours, whether it would be worth trying to get in touch with his mom…

“Don’t I just look so _cute_ in it though?” Newt rolled over onto his back and tried to make his best attractive face.

“No.” Hermann said.

“I’m taking it then.” The backs of his eyelids super fascinating to him all of a sudden. “And besides, I have real and observed evidence of you thinking I’m cute, you can’t lie to me anymore, Gottlieb.”

“That was the me of,” Newt knew without the whole drift hangover thing that Hermann was checking his watch. It didn’t take a drift with the guy to realise he was an anal retentive pedant, honestly. “Almost eight hours ago. Have you considered a lot might have changed in regards to me thinking you are, ‘cute’?”

“Considering you kissed me with everyone watching once the gin loosened you up a little, yeah, possibly.” Newt mumbled, gesturing in the vague direction of his temple. “Empirical evidence, bitch.”

“Alright, that’s quite enough of that.” Herman said, catching Newt’s wrist and arranging him more _in_ the bed rather than sprawled artlessly half on Hermann and half off the bed. “I’ve never seen a person crash as quickly and effectively as you do, Newton.”

“One of my many and enviable skillsets.” Newt replied. Occasionally he got the feeling that he should be a lot bigger and have possibly more _arms_ than he does, but he shut that shit down as quick as it came thanks to some stellar teamwork between his brain and him. “I’m keeping the jacket.” He near-slurred, hugging it around him. “Because a) your room is freezing and I know you don’t generate any body heat at _all_ , hence the sweater vests and b) I don’t wanna be shirtless.”

Much to Newt’s semi-conscious disgruntlement, Hermann wrestled the jacket off him and a t-shirt over his head. His glasses came off with it, and Newt sighed in relief at the responsibility of seeing having been lifted from him. 

“Look at us,” Newt said, as he watched a blurry Hermann change out of his dirty clothes. “All drift compatible and shit.”

“Quite.” Hermann replied absently, crossing the room into the bathroom. The sound of running water could be heard, and of Hermann brushing his teeth.

“Sharing clothes, me sleeping in your bed.” Newt sighed, groaning as he stretched and all his overtaxed muscles protested at the top of their lungs. He figured that Hermann had some sort of special mattress of something, because of his hip, because Newt was just sinking and _sinking_ into the bed. Or he had just been running or drifting with an alien hivemind or almost being eaten for over 24 hours and he was beyond tired into a state even he rarely saw. He closed his eyes against the rather unpleasant fluorescent light and felt his pulse thump slowly in his eyeball. Ouch.

“We’re not sharing clothes.” Hermann said, coming back into the room and shoving Newt gently in the shoulder. “Move over, Newton.” He said softly, and with a grunt and monumental effort Newt rolled over onto his side.

“I’m not being dramatic.” He said, before Hermann could even open his mouth. “And I’m beginning to believe that perhaps those shots I made Tendo give me earlier were a tiny huge mistake.” He didn’t open his eyes when Hermann’s spidery hand slid over his stomach and he felt him settle against his back. He could feel Hermann’s breath on the nape of his neck, and supressed a shiver because really, he was just too fucking tired.

“As jarring as it is to hear you admit to making a _mistake_ ,” Hermann murmured, and Newt rolled his eyes at himself for loving that awful second-hand British accent. British tapering to German, Hermann had never been able to shake that country boy Bavaria accent from his voice. Newt, he was Boston through and through, but knew from Hermann’s memories that when he spoke German, or shouted, or both, his inner Berliner came through. He realised belatedly that he’d missed the end of Hermann’s sentence as he’d mused over their accents, and just hummed in reply and hoped it would do.

“You weren’t even listening, were you?” Hermann said, and Newt just burrowed back into him a little in reply. “I said that you should sleep.”

“Mmyeah.” Newt said, and definitely didn’t slur the rest of his sentence. “I gotta be tired if you’re making sense to me right now.” He felt Hermann press a very uncharacteristic kiss to the nape of his neck and hummed. “S’nice.” He mumbled. Hermann hummed and did it again.

Newt fell asleep to the sound of Hermann’s breathing, his arm around his waist and his face against his neck soothing the feedback scratch in Newt’s brain to an easy drone that for once, made it easy to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> me: writes a dozen post-drift aus until i satisfy my craving to write every single scenario i dream up on public transport
> 
> comments are always appreciated and encouraging! title from berlin by supercos


End file.
